I was sporting two heirlooms, the helm and cloak. Ironically they are the PvE items, not the two PvP heirlooms abandoned a while back.

The reason is simple. As much as I suck at math, I do still possess the ability to compare two numbers and to date, there have been no quest or instance rewards that beat these heirlooms for stats.

So call me stupid if you want, but I am going to wear the item with the better stats in a life and death battle, rather than die for appearances.

Singlet, shorts and thongs may be unacceptable for admittance to a bar in Melbourne, but when I’m in Queensland, I’d be silly to wear the full attire.

Anyway, in a BG like SotA, BG gear is less relevant, smarts is what counts.

In SotA, your opponents aren’t so much 3.5k resilience arena players, rather they are Demolishers and Gates.

Any man and their 3-legged dog can attack gates and demos, as long as you are doing it smart.

Sure you need to pull the enemy off your demos and you need to slow their demos down, but these are a product of talents and skills, not the colour of your armor.

I would start each skirmish in the cannons, because I wasn’t getting hit, but I was hitting for 18k+ each time.

I was obviously doing something right as nearly every BG, I came out with destroyed demos and gates… More than most of those people in the BG, not bad for someone wearing heirlooms right?

If I remember right, in the same BG that lolwatninja was having a go at me for wearing heirlooms, I destroyed 3 demos and 2 gates. Sure I only got 1 killing blow and around 10 HKs, but SotA isn’t a game for kills (unless you get to farm a graveyard), it’s a game of CC vs. Dispels and Demos vs. Gates.

For the record, he was higher than me on the scoreboard with 1 killing blow and 12 HKs… But no destroyed demos or gates.

Aiming for victory

Different BGs require different levels of gear due to the mechanics, so let’s take a look at what you should aim for. I would never suggest you don’t enter a BG until you have the gear – it’s the best way to get the gear, as you learn while your earn.

There are 3 stats you want before dealing with your normal stats.

Hit: You want 4% hit. Enough to hit a level 85.

Penetration: You want around 170 to 220 penetration. 170 is usually enough for BGs. You want this even as melee if you have any “spell-like” abilities that can be resisted (ie. Demoralizing shout).

Resilience: anything, the more the better, but there is a soft cap at about 3400 resilience. In fact Blizzard have recently changed things so that low resilience gets a boost and high gets a nerf.

Everything else: your normal stat weighting.

How much for which BG?

As I mentioned, some BGs are more forgiving than others due to their mechanics. Some are more “PvE-ish”, whereas others require lots of hand to hand Gnomo-on-Gnomo fighting.

That said, there are exceptions to every rule. A guildy, Maiyen, recently joined us in our WSG adventures with zero resilience, not something id normally recommend, but why not?

Admittedly he was slaughtered midfield, I could hear his cries of despair without voice comms.

However, once he worked out where he could be the most benefit, it became irrelevant. We have one fight in our flag room that stretched on forever. I half noticed the little green swirls around my body, but paid it little attention. Apparently the Horde paid it less, as we DPS mowed them down while they ignored our squishy healer.

Required resilience gear:

Zero to as much as possible.

Alterac Valley

Strand of the Ancients

Isle of Conquest

Tol Barad

More is better.

Arathi Basin

Eye of the Storm

Twin Peaks

Expect to die without it.

Warsong Gulch

Battle for Gilneas

Yes, yes, I know you can argue that some require more resilience gear (eg: EotS), but you always want more resilience gear. If you understand the battle and your PuG isn’t working at crossed purposes, then you will be fine.

There is always the chance that you will meet a team that will beat you whether you are in heirlooms and PvE gear or full epic resilience gear.

So, just do it!

Remember, you win some, you lose some. Play to win no matter what you are dressed in.

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16 Responses

Love the site! As as a fellow gnome mage (turned gnome priest) I doubly love it. I have you and Cynwise on heavy rotation and my pvp game has improved because of it. I’ve been leveling a disc priest mainly in BGs and plan to focus on endgame pvp when I cap. I’ve been doing the research and learning the ropes on my own, but would love to get some expert pvp healing advice. Any suggestions on a good blog? I read the various forums but don’t really trust most of the info and the oneblog people recommend (warsong Priest) isn’t updated any more suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!
-Cogwright (Queldori)

Checked out Only God Can Make A Tree and his two BG healing
Tip posted were great. A lot of stuff I was doing already but always good to validate it.
Learned some new stuff too. All his advice still holds up even though it was written in 2009. Thanks again for the recommendation. OK,
That’s enough WOW for me this Memorial Day weekend, back to the beach!

Thanks to both of you for the tips. I’ll check out those blogs you recommended for any general tips. One thing I’ve done is to use a macro every BG that asks the leader to mark all healers. It works about 50-75% of the time. But it at least gets people thinking about healers, and saves me from typing it out everytime.

your PvP posts are so informative and inspiring — now i need to check my stats to make sure i’m doing all right. i would wilt if someone criticized my gear or stats in a BG. either that, or i’d tell them that i’m not there to play to please them, i’m there to play for my own enjoyment, so STFU already. (see? you’re a definite influence!) : )

I expect criticism as much as I expect frequent and gruesome deaths in the BG… it’s part of the game. Not necessarily a part of the game I like, but at the end of the day, the only person I can control is me… and I do that badly enough as it is.

We don’t have healers – we are going to lose
We are Alliance – we always lose
It’s Wednesday – we are going to lose
Why don’t you bastards roll heals… says the Warrior/DK/Mage/Lock/Hunter
Pally/Druid/Priest/Shaman – respec now, we don’t pay our month subs for you to DPS in BGs
I SPEAK IN CAPS AND YOU WILL PAY ATTENTION TO ME